A united Britain will have the upper hand over a divided and declining European Union

At any normal time, the ruling class will rob, mismanage, sabotage, lead us into the muck,” wrote George Orwell, soon after the Second World War. “But let popular opinion really make itself heard, let them get a tug from below – and it is difficult for them not to respond”. At the outset of this new decade, the UK’s ruling class has most definitely felt a powerful “tug from below”. Popular opinion has been expressed, repeatedly, and we’re finally leaving the European Union.

Whether it was Ukip’s victory in the 2014 European election, or David Cameron’s 2015 majority after he promised an “in-out referendum”, the electorate sent the same signal. The Leave vote prevailed in 2016 – with a referendum majority bigger than the population of Birmingham. Since then we’ve had another European election, won by the Brexit Party, and two general elections – in which the Tories prevailed on a pledge to implement Brexit, the latest with a thumping majority.

These successive votes were less a “tug from below” than the electorate grabbing our “ruling class” by the scruff of the neck. Continuity Remainers have been trounced. That’s why Michael Heseltine and Lord Adonis have conceded the fight is over – for which they both deserve credit. Some Remain-friendly media outlets have also now parked their outrage. “Britain sees in the new year on a wave of optimism” declared The Times yesterday, publishing a poll suggesting “Britons are becoming more optimistic about the economy” as Brexit day approaches. “Brexit presents a challenge for Britain’s economy, but this is no time for doom-mongering,” said a Financial Times editorial. That’s a relief, after three and a half years of FT doom-mongering.

But this is no time for triumphalism, either. Those of us who’ve offered reasoned arguments for Brexit and been pilloried – dubbed thick, xenophobic and worse – could be forgiven for gloating over the electorate’s repeated refusal to be cowed by Remainer scare-tactics. Yet no good can come of that.

What’s important now, after a post-crisis decade of relative economic stagnation, compounded by these years of political conflict, is bringing the country back together. As such, the Prime Minister’s New Year’s message struck the right note. The sure knowledge we’re leaving on January 31 will allow people to “turn the page on the division, rancour and uncertainty” of this ghastly Brexit debate and look forward to “a fantastic year and a remarkable decade”.

As long as there was a chance Brexit might not happen, the EU was always going to exaggerate the potential downside and difficulties of leaving, in the hope of encouraging Remainers and upending public opinion. Now we’re definitely going, Brussels-based Eurocrats must see it makes sense to ensure Brexit happens smoothly and a trade deal is secured to everyone’s mutual benefit – even if unreconciled British MPs and commentators keep crying foul.

There have always been good arguments to stay in the EU. But the arguments to leave are far stronger – and the vast majority of British voters value national democracy far more than European nation-building, sensing the ongoing Brussels power grab has already gone too far.

What has never made sense is being half in and half out of the EU – with the UK bearing the financial and sovereignty costs, but with no say and few of the benefits. “Soft Brexit” – a notion invented only after the 2016 result – was always a con.

Only outside the EU’s single market and customs union can the UK “take back control of our laws, borders and money”, as voters were promised – reasserting the supremacy of British law, including a democratically accountable immigration system, without breaking the “four freedoms” that hold the EU together. This maximises the economic benefits of Brexit, while providing the quickest, least fraught route to a mutually beneficial UK-EU trade deal.

The upcoming trade talks will no doubt feature more brinkmanship and finger pointing. But with the Commons onside, Brexit is no longer on a knife-edge – meaning Britain finally has the upper hand in the negotiations to come.

Financial markets are waking up to the possibility post-Brexit Britain could enjoy a “roaring 2020s”. The FTSE-100 Index of leading shares gained 12 per cent last year, having fallen by the same amount in 2018. And the FTSE-250, focused on smaller, more UK-centric firms, is 25 per cent up over the last 12 months.

Far from shedding a million jobs after voting to leave – as predicted by HM Treasury – the UK has created a million since the Brexit referendum. New figures show our non-EU exports grew five times faster over the last year than our exports to the EU – which makes sense, given that the majority of growth is happening elsewhere.

Since 2016, the UK economy has held up well – weathering Brexit-related uncertainty, as the eurozone has flirted with recession. And with mass protests on the streets of France and Spain, and hard-Right parties rampant in Italy and Germany (where Alternative Für Deutschland is now the official opposition) it is the EU not the UK that has problems with extremism. While Brexit has been painful, the reassertion of democracy and the nation-state will moderate British politics, a lesson our European neighbours have yet to learn.

“Let’s bid farewell to the division, rancour and uncertainty that has held us back for too long,” said Johnson yesterday. He has a golden opportunity to create an economic model promoting competition rather than cronyism, local enterprise rather than big business, that not only generates wealth but spreads it – particularly beyond the South East. For the first time in living memory, defending their new Midlands and Northern seats, the Tories have a powerful electoral imperative to govern as “One Nation Conservatives”.

“Patriotism takes different forms in different classes, but it runs like a connecting thread through nearly all of them,” wrote Orwell. Voters sense that Johnson gets this, in a way most of his political opponents don’t. He now needs to restore not only national unity but also, after the frustrations of Brexit, the UK’s sense of national pride.